Bullets Will Work: A Vampire Slayer Novel

by Geoffrey C Porter

  Motion out of the corner of my eye. A vampire running right at us. I drew my pistol, but Nathan shouted, "Wait!"

  He drew his sword. The vampire was a wild one, a savage, bitten too many times. Nathan cut the beast down. It had blisters on its skin from sunlight. More motion, two, three. Erin, Pup, and I pulled out our blades. The group we were with drew pistols or shotguns.

  "Save your ammo," I said. "We'll deal with these, get our stuff packed!"

  The next vampire's skin was smoking, and he was hissing. Nathan motioned with his hand, and the vampire charged. With one precise stroke, Nathan lopped off that one's head. Two more still raced towards us.

  Erin and Pup advanced to meet them. Erin cut through the neck of the one on her side. Pup pierced his through the eye socket.

  I used my eagle eyes mutant ability to spy about the place, and more motion flickered all around us. No, I don't actually have mutant abilities, but motion like leaves in the wind was everywhere.

  "We're in a bad way," I said.

  Pup sheathed his sword and hauled stuff into his car. Dawn ran up to me. "We're ready to roll."

  "Nathan, Erin, let's go!"

  Henry pulled up with the convertible. Nathan and Erin climbed into the back. I got in on the passenger side. Our caravan pulled out of the grocery store parking lot, just as it was being overrun by wild vampires. They ripped into the charcoal fire, scattering it. They feasted on the corpses of our companions. I wanted so bad to go back there and kill every last one of them.

  I looked at our GPS. The screen was blank. "The GPS?" I asked.

  "When I started the car, the screen said updating then it went blank," Henry said.

  Reminded me of certain operating systems I'd used.

  "Stop at the next gas station," I said. "They might have maps."

  "If we follow I-70, I can get us to our fort," Nathan said.

  Erin nodded. "I can, too."

  Henry slowed the car down as he had to weave past cars dotting the street. "I truly believe, if we stay on this road, we'll hit I-70."

  Great, then there was nothing for me to do than sit back and enjoy the ride. Traveling at about fifteen mph weaving in and out of lanes, sometimes using the leftmost lanes, was far from relaxing.

  I kept my eyes peeled, watching for more of the wild vampires. We were coming up to an intersection with two gas stations and an on-ramp to I-70. I said, "Stop here."

  "We really don't need gas," Henry said.

  "Bathroom breaks, plus loading up on snacks."

  "Aye."

  We need as many snacks as we could carry. The vehicles were all already full, and we didn't need gas enough to siphon it. I looked at the gas gauge in our convertible. Three-quarters of a tank. I decided it was empty enough to siphon.

  We had a hose, and I had not tried it yet, but in principle, I knew how to do it. One end of the hose went into the underground tank. The other end I sucked on. It took a lot of effort, and I got a mouthful of gas. In fact, I'm almost certain I swallowed some, which causes cancer of course. The gas flowed. We spilled a lot, but I kept gas cans handy and filled those up when we were switching vehicles.

  Dawn walked up to me and handed me a mint. I thanked her. Once I ate the mint, she kissed me. I wasn't sure if she was my girlfriend or my new wife, but I wasn't going to complain about the affection.

  We hit I-70, leaving Indianapolis behind. I looked back at the city. A few smoke plumes reached into the sky. Signs started counting down with St. Louis on them. I would have been happier if we were doing highway speeds, but stopped and burned out vehicles forced us to slow down.

  If it was just Henry driving our convertible beast, we could have done over a hundred mph, but since we had a caravan, no way.

  On seeing St. Louis, the city burned. Easily a thousand smoke trails into the sky. The sun was setting behind it.

  "We go around," I said.

  Henry slowed the car down then turned around. The caravan followed behind.

  Chapter Eight

  The first major intersection we came to was for Route 4. We went left. Route 4 was a two-lane road, and it could have easily been blocked. We traveled for a few miles with a clear path. Corn fields populated both sides of the road. A few burned out cars were at an intersection. The sign said 143, and if we went left, we'd be going west, and that was our objective.

  We went around the husks of vehicles, heading west. More corn fields. The road was passable. We came to another intersection, but I liked 143. Henry asked, "Turn?"

  "No, go forward," I said.

  We were making good time, and Henry eased the gas up. One of the cars in our caravan honked their horn. I nudged Henry, "Pull over."

  "Aye."

  Trees and a farmhouse sat by the side of the road. It must have been ingrained in our DNA or something, but people went behind the trees to relieve their bladders and bowels. I did the same thing. Maybe it was the way we were raised. Privacy? I didn't know. It was close to lunch time.

  I shouted, "Let's take a break, snack."

  A few people had been smart enough to grab coolers and ice at the grocery store, and Dawn thrust an ice cold soda into my hands. I ate chips and a snack cake.

  Dawn handed me a bag of peanuts. "Nutrition."

  The thumpity-thump-thump of a helicopter convinced my body we needed to hurry. It was dumb. We weren't going to outrun a helicopter. I shouted, "Let's get rolling!"

  The helicopter had a number painted on it, and it was civilian. I believe it was a news chopper. We left some trash behind, which made me feel really terrible.

  Within moments, we were heading down 143 at about forty mph. We could have gone faster, but the road could be blocked at any moment. The helicopter seemed content to follow us.

  We passed two more intersections, heck, one was more bike path than road. We didn't turn. Houses and structures dotted both sides of the road, and their density increased significantly like we were in a small town. Some of the buildings were burned out, but some were still standing. It looked like a few windows were smashed on some. A body lay in a front yard. It was covered in bites.

  Then more bodies. The road was clear, though, so hell. We ran into corn fields again. Then out of the blue, a great oasis. A gas station. The shelves were mostly empty. The power was out. Toilets still worked. We really didn't need food, but when we finished with that place, the shelves were truly bare. The tobacco addicts in our troop acquired more generic cigarettes. I did the siphon gas through the hose trick again, and we topped off our tanks.

  I looked Henry in the eye. "You want me to drive for a while?"

  He shook his head. "I love driving, especially that convertible. I can drive all day."

  "Let's saddle up, folks!"

  We were back on 143 in no time. The road widened, and there were on ramps leading to an actual highway. The signs said 55, but the sign pointing south said St. Louis.

  I leaned into Henry's ear. "Stay on 143."

  He upped the speed to about fifty mph. The road was straight. We had two lanes. I looked behind us. The rest of the caravan was keeping up. I looked into the sky. The helicopter I'd been ignoring was still there. It wasn't close enough for Nathan's rifle to take it out, and worrying over it was just going to drive me batty.

  The road we were on continued, but a sign pointed to the right that said 143, and it looked like it was heading northwest, and I figured that was our best bet. Henry took the turn.

  We went through trees for a while. Driving through back country Illinois was really boring. We came upon a big town. I think Edwardsville. More houses and trees. The occasional dead body. I didn't want to stop.

  The road was blocked. We were surrounded by shopping centers and houses. The cars that sat in our way were burned out husks of metal and rubber. We turned around. Every so often roads turned off to the left and right, but each led deeper into residential sections and shopping. We took the first left.

  As soon as we hit another road, we went left again. I wan
ted us to get past the blockage on 143 and back on that road. I think, if we took it left, we'd end up at that same section of burned out cars, so I said to go straight. We hadn't seen a vampire all day, and with all the houses around, I was worried we were actually quite surrounded. I would rather be back driving through corn fields or trees.

  We took the next left. We ran into 143 again and turned right.

  "Drive fast," I said.

  "You don't like this town?" Erin asked.

  "This town is likely crawling with vampires. We need to find a nice corn field and bed down."

  "My thoughts exactly," Nathan said.

  Chapter Nine

  We upped our speed a bit. We kept turning north until we ended up on 67. More cornfields and dinky little towns. We ran into a bigger town and took a left on 108. Our friendly helicopter was gone. A few cars dotted either side of the road as we traveled, but it was never blocked completely.

  Many of the houses were intact. We reached the Illinois River, and there was no frigging bridge. A ferry waited on the other side, but it looked empty. I wish we'd have found a map.

  I stood up in the convertible and waved. "Let's camp here."

  "It's not that late," Nathan said.

  A teenager came running up to our convertible with a beautiful map in her hands. "I found this at our last gas station. Didn't think anything of it."

  A map of Illinois. The kid's name was Bobbie I think. I said, "You're a beautiful person."

  "Thank you."

  We drove back to a little town and turned right. Followed that a while. Turned a few more times. Ended up at a wonderful bridge. We took 100 North after that. Turned left on 96.

  According to our map, we needed to take 54 to cross the Mississippi River. We did that, and the sun was setting. We turned off 54 until we came to a small lake. We were running low on bottled water, so we drank from the lake. Empty bottles were reused with fresh water from the lake. We had tents and a guard order, so really nothing could go wrong.

  I couldn't sleep. Nathan's sniper rifle ended up in my hands, and the scope had night vision. I watched over the camp. Should have slept, or tried to sleep. Didn't doze at all. We broke camp, which involved packing up tents and taking more water from the lake.

  A deer stepped into my view. I put a bullet in her heart. One of the men pulled a knife and gutted the animal. He tossed the carcass into the back of his pickup truck and drove off. Who was that guy?

  Actually, it was George who we found hiding in a gas station a few days back, and he didn't drive off. He said, "We'll eat it for lunch."

  We got rolling on down the road. Erin had our map. I closed my eyes for a moment. I dreamed of vampires, and rooms full of caged humans. The dreams were more like visions. Some of the humans were in zoos, and being kept alive to be bred. I had to wake up. We were stopped. We were at a park in a small town, where I didn't know.

  Dawn walked up to me. "Sleepyhead."

  I've seen visions of the end, and she calls me sleepyhead.

  "Yeah," I said.

  Something smelled really good. The deer had been butchered, and pieces of the flesh were on some kind of large grill. The park was set up to have community parties it seemed, complete with fire pits and grills.

  There was a second grill going, and cans of corn and baked beans were sitting on it with their lids off.

  Dawn pulled me in close and kissed me on the lips. "While you were sleeping, we found a grocery store. It was looted bad but back in the back was a store room, and it was untouched."

  I was beginning to wonder if I was still dreaming. Somebody handed me a paper plate, plastic fork, and knife. I helped myself to some of the flesh and side dishes. We even had dinner rolls and butter.

  Erin scowled at me. "It's not grass-fed."

  Oh, boohoo. "That's terrible. I doubt I'll survive."

  "Yes, I expect I'll perish."

  I ate the food. "Where are we?"

  Pup grinned like some kind of heathen at an orgy of drugs and sex. "We're in a park, having an amazing meal, what else matters?"

  "We don't have a clue where we are," Nathan said. "We've been on I-70 almost all morning, and this just looked like a nice town to look for a park in, and we found a park."

  "And we can get back to I-70?" I asked.

  "Unless there's been some kind of meteor strike or great cataclysm."

  Out of the corner of my eagle eyes, motion. I squinted. A wild one. I looked in every direction. On the edges of my distance, wild ones. Nathan and Adam had their rifles out.

  "Save your ammo," I said.

  "There are a lot of them, and me, you, pup, and Erin are the only ones with swords," Nathan said.

  "How about conserve your ammo, aim for the heart. Save a few for us."

  The 7.26mm NATO rifles start kicking up thunder. I covered my ears with my palms. They saved about five for the rest of us. Erin, Pup, and I got them.

  Each of the wild ones was covered in bites. Their skin was burned and blistering from the sun. They were clothed, but the clothes had blood stains on them.

  I walked over to Pup. He had the belt-fed machine gun strapped to his back. I said, "You've got to retire that machine gun. We're too low on 7.62 ammo."

  He wept.

  "I kind of knew that, and it's really heavy anyhow," Pup said.

  "Save it," I said. "Stash it in a trunk. We might run into ammo."

  "Splendid idea."

  Chapter Ten

  We headed back towards I-70, and a meteor strike had indeed destroyed the road. No, we were doing about fifty mph on the interstate. Every so often we'd have to switch to the eastbound lanes to make it through, but we made it. The sun started to set. We approached a pretty large city, Kansas City, Missouri, and I called a halt to our caravan. We turned off the freeway and drove a few miles into country roads.

  The sun set in shades of purple and red. I walked up to Nathan and Adam. They had our rifles. "Watch for deer," I said. "This is deer country."

  The two young men fist bumped and wandered off. I shouted to people. "Let's find deadwood and try to get a fire going. Keep your pistols handy."

  Henry raised his hand. "I've got a shotgun."

  I glared at him. He snickered and walked off. Dawn and I headed into the woods. We found a few decent branches. In the distance, a rifle shot rang out. I prayed a silent prayer that it was a deer and not a vampire. "Let's head back," I said.

  Dawn picked up a six-foot long branch and turned to go back.

  George was cleaning a deer when we got there. We didn't have a grill because we were clearly stupid, but we had sticks. The meat dripped with fat into the fire. We heated up cans of green beans and peas. Where the delicious corn and baked beans had disappeared to was anybody's guess.

  The butter was soft. I really wasn't sure if butter required refrigeration, but I was pretty sure mankind had been making butter for thousands of years before the first refrigerator was invented.

  Bill had been shot in the shoulder a few days back, and his skin was turning a deathly pale. I leaned into Dawn. "Check on Bill."

  Dawn leaned into my ear and whispered. "His shoulder is infected. The one drug I failed to bring is antibiotics."

  "We'll find a pharmacy tomorrow, in the daylight. Kansas City."

  "Good."

  I pulled Dawn in close and kissed her on the neck. Once I was finished with the food for the evening, I pulled Dawn into our tent and made wild love to her for hours.

  For some reason, I couldn't sleep after that. I went to watch the fire and watch for bad guys. Every so often, from far away, the sound of a big rig traveling on I-70 came through the trees. It made me wonder. I had adopted Nathan's rifle, and I was watching in every direction. A few noises came from a couple of the tents. One of the tents it was clearly sexual noises, but the other tent was somebody sobbing.

  I didn't want to disturb either party, but I made a note of which tent the sobbing came from. In the morning, Jen stepped out of that tent. Yes, th
is was the same Jen who was shot in the leg when Bill was shot. She looked healthy enough. I walked up to her.

  She was looking the other way. I touched her shoulder. She turned to me. "I heard you crying last night," I said.

  She sniffled and wiped her nose.

  "It's better if you talk about it," I said.

  "There's nothing to talk about. My leg hurts is all."

  I didn't believe her. "Dawn may have pain killers."

  Jen slapped me, hard.

  I was ok with it. I wasn't about to hit her back. "Tell me what's wrong."

  "I left people behind in Dayton. Is that what you want to hear?"

  "We can't go back," I said.

  "I know. I'm sure they're dead or worse."

  "Get some food in you. We're going into Kansas City to find a pharmacy. Bill's shoulder is infected."

  "Shit!"

  Yes, that's exactly how I felt too.

  We ate snack cakes and chocolate for breakfast. Well, I had some potato chips too, but I figured they weren't much better than the sugary treats. I was tired. I'd been up all night. Nathan's rifle went back to Nathan.

  We're going to get lost in Kansas City I told myself. The vampires were going to be a like a swarm. A helicopter hovered in the distance. Maybe watching us. Maybe not. Definitely watching us. It was a civilian helicopter again, but with different markings than the previous choppers.

  We drove back to I-70 and headed west. I didn't want to sleep, wanted to stay up. I closed my eyes for an instant. I was inside a vampire. Humans were in big dog crates, the kind you'd expect to find a Doberman in or a St. Bernard. The vampire I was in, cut one of the humans on the arm and filled a small jar.

  The vampire split the jar between three other vampires. They then had a breakfast of eggs and toast, like normal people. I tried to shift my vision to other vampires, but I had no control of anything. I was in a foggy haze, and I tried to will myself awake. Somebody nudged me. I opened my eyes to reality.

  We were pulling up to a pharmacy. I blinked my eyes a few times. Henry was next to me. Erin and Nathan were in the back seat. Reality.